Little Anatoliy Odnoralov often came home after school with a bloody nose – the result of just another day as a Christian at his school in the North Caucasus region of the old Soviet Union.
DENVER, COLO.
– Little Anatoliy Odnoralov often came home after school with a bloody nose –
the result of just another day as a Christian at his school in the North
Caucasus region of the old Soviet Union.
“Since early
childhood, I knew the price for my convictions,” he says.
Anatoliy was the
third-born son of an ordinary shoemaker, who, along with his wife, were
faithful believers in Jesus Christ.
Unfortunately, they were believers living in a godless, atheistic nation
dedicated to the persecution of Christians.
As the family
grew to 13, the senior Odnoralov continued to draw his family together, reading
them stories from the Bible and urging them to pray. With his meager cobbler’s pay, he would
later purchase some musical instruments – a guitar, an accordion – and taught
himself and his children to play. He
even formed a family band – pretty easy with 13 children in the house.
“The school where
we were studying mocked us for our convictions and belief in God,” recalls
Anatoliy, today 43 and a North American Mission Board church planting missionary ministering to the Russian and
Jewish communities of Denver,
Colo.
Although the
Odnoralov children were excellent students in Soviet Russia, they were treated
as second-class citizens by teachers and fellow students alike.
Continually
harassed by the KGB and the Soviet Union’s
Committee on Religious Affairs, Odnoralov’s father was constantly summoned by
the authorities. Accused of the
inappropriate education of his children, they would either threaten him with
prison or with the taking of his beloved kids.
About the
Odnoralov family, Russian newspapers would write that “there are still people
in our society who continue to live in accordance with the old idea of the
Bible and thereby hinder the development of our prospering country.”
The constant KGB
badgering led to a series of lost jobs and the Odnoralovs finally fell into
poverty. Tragically, the senior
Odnoralov would be killed in a road accident in 1982, leaving teen-aged
Anatoliy and his 12 siblings in the care of their widowed, asthma-afflicted
mother.
At one point,
Mrs. Odnoralov ran out of money, with no way to buy milk and bread for her
large brood.
“Kids, I don’t
know what we will eat tomorrow,” she told her children one night. The children would later overhear their
mother praying: “You are the God of orphans and widows. You are my Father and you promised not to
leave me. Support me in my faith and
send bread for my family.”
Anatoliy, then
19, would wake up early the next morning from a loud knock on his door.
“Mother came out
with her eyes red from crying, and we came out with her into the street,” he
remembers. “We saw a man and before our
eyes, there were two huge bags of food.
The man said the food was for us.
“Who are you?
Where are you from?” we asked the stranger.
“But he told us not to ask him anything.
He turned around and left. Even
today, we do not know anything about him and have never met him anywhere
again. I believe we’ll meet him in
eternity,” Anatoliy says.
Anatoliy – whose
life story could be a TV miniseries — would suffer yet more, almost
unbearable, religious persecution while serving in the Soviet Army. After surviving the army, he attended the
Ukraine Bible Seminary, immigrated to the United
States, married his wife, Natasha, and attended the
Oklahoma Bible Institute in Oklahoma
City. The
Odnoralovs have four children.
Today, Odnoralov
is one of more than 5,300 missionaries in the United
States, Canada
and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for
North American Missions. He’s one of
eight Southern Baptist missionaries highlighted as part of the annual Week of
Prayer, March 4-11, 2007. The 2007
Annie Armstrong Easter Offering’s goal is $57 million, 100 percent of which is
used for missionaries like Odnoralov.
In Denver, Odnoralov operates the International Center of
Hope, a ministry focusing on the 60,000 Russian-speaking immigrants in the
greater Denver
area. Only three to four percent of them
are believers, while 80 percent are Russian-speaking Jews. He and his wife also work to plant new
churches to reach Russian-speaking Jewish communities in Denver.
“These people are
from the former Soviet Union,” Odnoralov
said. “They are very hard-working and
are just trying to survive. Many are
young people, who are studying hard to do well.
“When we launched
the center less than a year ago, we had a vision. Before, we had to go out and look for local
Russian people at their residences. It
was not always easy. Now, people come to
the center on their own.”
The chief project
of the center is teaching English as a second language to as many as 100
Russian immigrants at a time. The center
also offers computer, music, art, Russian history and Hebrew language classes. All of the classes are offered at a nominal
charge. In addition, the center sponsors
home Bible studies for Russian-speaking people. Odnoralov says they prefer studying the
Bible in private homes rather than in local churches.
“It’s very
important that people want to come to us, of their own free will,” he
says. “We want to establish
relationships with them. We also have a
big youth group, and we have summer camps to attract kids who do not know Jesus. We see kids accept the Messiah, and they pass
on the Good News to their friends and family members.”
By forming
relationships, Odnoralov said the Russian people can observe how Christians
live.
“We are open to
them. They see our everyday lives. They see our households. We are not afraid to show them how we live. So we have mutual understanding and then they
open up to the Gospel. We see families
on the edge of divorce. We see people
who are depressed. And then we see
families restored and relationships between parents and kids restored,” said
Odnoralov.
Odnoralov says
it’s often difficult to minister and witness to Russian Jews.
“There have been
many dark periods for the Jews – like the Holocaust – in which so-called
Christians were cruel to Jews. That’s
why Jews nowadays are resentful and very skeptical about Christians.”
Most of the
Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union are
atheists, according to Odnoralov.
“Others are willing to admit there’s a God but they’re not ready to
accept Jesus. They want to attend a
synagogue rather than a church. Others
say, ‘there is a God but I’m waiting for the Messiah.’”
Calling
themselves Messianic Jews to emphasize what they believe, Odnoralov and his
volunteers tell the Russian immigrants not only that the Messiah has already
come, but is coming a second time at some point in the future.
“It’s very
difficult for Russian-speaking people, especially Jewish people, to accept this
Good News,” he said. “We usually have to
work for a long time to create faith in them.
As the Apostle Paul said, ‘the veil on the Jews’ eyes can be lifted only
by Christ Himself.’”
Odnoralov said
the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering is important to his ministry “because we
devote all of ourselves to this ministry.
It’s important for us to have the Offering as our back-up. For us to successfully hit the targets that
God wants us to hit, we need this support.”
There was a time
when Odnoralov wanted to always stay in Russia, where he was already a
missionary doing important work. He
had no desire to immigrate to America.
He asked himself,
“why do I have to go to America
if I am serving here? But God created
extraordinary circumstances and I had to go to the States. When I came here, I was asking God, ‘God, why
am I here? What am I supposed to do?’”
Eight months into
his new life in the United
States, an old Jewish man helped open
Odnoralov’s eyes. At the time, Odnoralov
was handing out Christian literature to Russian-speaking Jews on the downtown
streets of Denver.
“One day, an old
man, a Jewish man, came up to my table,” Odnoralov recalls. “He asked me why I had come there, bringing
my strange God and Christian literature.
“I told him I was
bringing the literature just to give out and let people read it. The old man looked deep into my eyes and
said, ‘I’m an old man. I will die soon,
but my people will live until the Messiah comes.’”
Odnoralov said
the Holy Spirit immediately spoke to his heart, telling him to look into the
eyes of the old man, into his heart.
“The Holy Spirit
told me that the Jewish man’s eyes were empty and without hope. ‘I want you to speak, to tell these people
about Me. Tell them without stopping,’
the Holy Spirit said. At that moment, I
finally understood my call.
“God just put me
in the place where I was supposed to be.
So all my questions that I had before leaving Russia were answered here. And I am very thankful to God for this
call. I feel I am in the right place
where God wants me to be.”